Commoners may have played an unappreciated part in the rise of an ancient Maya royal dynasty. Self-described “divine lords” at a Maya site called Tamarindito in what’s now Guatemala left…
Category: Humans
At a long COVID clinic, here’s how doctors are trying to help one woman who is struggling
Listen to this story about long COVID realities Click here for a full audio version of this story, read by Science News staff writer Meghan Rosen. Audio: M. Rosen, H.…
Why daylight saving time just isn’t healthy, according to science
Daylight saving time has ended, and most Americans have turned their clocks back an hour. My sixth-grader is in heaven. At 6:50 a.m. these days, our once testy tween zombie…
DNA is providing new clues to why COVID-19 hits people differently
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the mercurial nature of the coronavirus has been on display. Some people get mild, cold-like illnesses or even have no symptoms when infected, while…
50 years ago, Stonehenge’s purpose mystified scientists. It still does
Stonehenge: A calendar or just a crematorium — Science News, November 11, 1972 The monument consisted of a circle of immense, finely tooled stone archways surrounded by a range of…
This child was treated for a rare genetic disease while still in the womb
A toddler girl is flourishing after receiving treatment for a rare genetic disease. In a first for this disease, she received that treatment before she was even born. Sixteen-month-old Ayla…
This ancient Canaanite comb is engraved with a plea against lice
Engraved into the side of a nearly 4,000-year-old ivory comb is a simple wish: Get these lice out of my hair. This faint inscription, written in the early language of…
Here’s how mysterious last-resort antibiotics kill bacteria
To kill drug-resistant bacteria, “last-resort” antibiotics borrow a tactic from Medusa’s playbook: petrification. New high-resolution microscope images show that a class of antibiotics called polymyxins crystallize the cell membranes of…
Cat allergies may be tamed by adding an asthma therapy to allergy shots
Adding lab-made antibodies to allergy shots may better groom the immune system against cat allergies than standard shots alone. The combination therapy also reduced allergy symptoms for a year after…
The U.S.’s alcohol-induced death rate rose sharply in the pandemic’s first year
The death rate from alcohol use rose sharply in the United States in the first year of the pandemic. From 2019 to 2020, the rate of alcohol-induced deaths climbed 26…